Alright for Fighting
by shrewface
Summary: Xander’s years after Sunnydale became a big hole in the ground –growing up, being childish, learning lessons and understanding very little. Eventual SpikeXander.


_First Year after Sunnydale_

He didn't know why he'd said it. Sure he was a Cali, boy born and bred, but he'd never been one to use the OC lingo. As a teenager he'd spent most of his time slaying vampires or providing a worthy distraction until someone _else_ slay the vampires and even before the vampire slayege, he'd never been the archetypal bright young thing, tanned and fond of the word 'tubular'.

So he couldn't work out why he'd decided that in the meeting that would define how well he'd get on with the magical community in Africa, it would be a good idea to call the most highly respected seer "dude". In his defence, he hadn't known dude meant worm in Arabic until _after_ he was tossed out on his ass.

"What do you need help with now, Xander?" his voice crackled down the line but Xander could still hear the distinct lack of surprise in Giles' tone.

"I …" Xander twisted his hands around the telephone cord until his fingers turned blue and nodded silently, a decision made. "It's nothing, I can deal. Uh, tell the girls I said hi."

_Second Year after Sunnydale_

He was getting better at the _You're A Slayer … No, Seriously!_ talk. It was down to a lot of practice. He'd learnt that visual aids were his friends and that platitudes really weren't because they usually didn't translate into other languages. Sometimes when Xander tried to say 'with great power comes great responsibility' he actually said 'being so big should cause you much worry'. This generally didn't go down very well.

The new slayers also tended to believe him quicker if they watched him stake a vampire. Long winded speeches about staking vampires and the advantages of holy water weren't all that useful because nobody ever understood what he meant when he said something like: "holy water burns vampires but not tap water. They might think tap water burns them because damn, if you stumble onto a vampire nest you'll know about because they stink but hey, I kid, they're not really scared of tap water they just smell like they are and am I speaking too fast?"

He was also still working on perfecting his _Give The Crazy One-Eyed Infidel Your Superhero Daughter … Please? _talk. Because that was an even harder task. This was why he was sitting in a taxi with a new slayerette practicing the speech that he planned to use on her mother.

"Mrs Shaifi …"

"_El _Shaifi. Missing out the 'El' makes her sound Iranian," Hind told him, not looking up from the 'welcome slayer!' pamphlet Andrew had created (complete with diagrams).

"And we don't want that?"

"We really don't want that."

"Okay. Mrs _El _Shaifi, I know that you're reluctant to let me take your daughter with me … does 'take your daughter with me' sound too 'Kiss the Girl'?"

Hind gave him a blank look.

"It's a movie. Morgan Freeman. You know what? I should have shaved. The goatee makes me look like a pimp."

"You'll be okay Mr. Zaander. I feel safe with you." Hind shrugged, frowning at her pamphlet when she flicked the page and was confronted with an image of Spike's face superimposed on Gandalf's body (Andrew had harnessed the power photoshop).

When they arrived at her house (four story villa with a garden the size of Sunnydale high) and Xander met Mrs El Shaifi, he didn't stick to the 'how to break it to a slayer's mother script' Buffy emailed him his first week there (along with the pointers on weapons maintenance and warnings to stay away from all the demon hotspots Giles had mentioned in previous emails because apparently Xander was completely incapable of doing anything at all by himself).

"_I feel safe with you."_

Xander set his shoulders and let the words flow. He knew what he had to say.

_Third Year after Sunnydale_

Xander threw Nada a stake and she caught it reflexively. "Trust me," he said, "you'll learn to love that hunk of wood. But not in a splinters-in-awkward-places way."

"Are you a hero?" She asked, the slur to her words worsened by her nerves as she paced the floor of the lobby barefoot. All the other guests in the New Sun hotel were packed in the penthouse shaking in their khaki shorts, their muffled sobs slapping the walls of the empty corridors. Xander had sent them there with no argument from the staff – the word 'gun' had a satisfyingly immediate effect, and when he'd pulled off his sunglasses to reveal his lack o' eye they'd been quick to obey. He felt cool. Not quite Clint cool, but definitely Pacino cool.

"Nope, you're the hero. I'm a flunkey," he said, pulling a crossbow form his bag. Nada's lips were pulled tight across her teeth and she flinched when the vampires started screaming outside – they were more demon than human in Africa. More primal. Giles said it's because of the old magic that shifted in the soil but Xander suspected it's the weather. The heat would make anyone cranky.

"You need more than one hero to win a … how do you call it bil Engilysi? Harrb. War."

"I never should have let you watch 'Return of the King'," Xander muttered. Nada didn't laugh. She just stared at the floor as her legs folded beneath her and her shoulders curled in. He crouched in front of her ready to spout his summarised version of Buffy's Guide to Life (point one: it sucks) but he heard her choke and moved just in time – his sneakers were new and he'd lost three pairs already to the forces of vomit. "The Exorcist probably wasn't a great idea, either."

"I'm not ready Mr. Zenderr," Nada whispered, shivering. And she was just a girl then, startlingly small, without training or death wish. Xander glanced up at the splintering door, knowing Faith would send her out there, as would Buffy. They'd tell her that they hadn't felt ready either, that they were plunged into battle too, "but look at us now!"

Yeah. Look at them now.

"You're right," Xander told her. Nada's eyes snapped to his face as she waited for the punch line. There wasn't one. "Go upstairs. If they get past me you won't have much time. Get the other guests to use the fire escape and then use the hotel shuttle bus out back."

She hugged him tight and gave him her necklace, coiling words of Allah lettered in gold. As bloodied, clawed fingers pushed through a split in the wooden door, Xander wondered if he should don the shades again to make him look a little tougher than he felt. He'd need all the help he could get … 'gun' didn't hold much weight with vampires.

_Fourth Year after Sunnydale_

After carefully weighing his options, Xander decided to get trashed. It wasn't the most constructive plan of action he'd ever come up with but he managed to burn away some of the worry itching at the back of his throat. It had been twelve hours since Dawn called to tell him about Apocalypse #35 that they were trying to avert in Italy, and although they'd obviously succeeded (see 'lack of the world going kaboom') she hadn't answered her cell. Which was probably a sign of Apocalypse #36.

"She hasn't called yet, huh?" Jez asked, clapping Xander's bare shoulder and flopping onto the couch beside him.

"Nope," Xander muttered into his cup. He briefly wondered if he should put some pants on but his air conditioner was spitting ice chips and the heat was just this side of unbearable. Besides, boxers were like shorts. Shorts were socially acceptable when dealing with slayer-women. It was probably in the pamphlet.

"Is that the local shite you're drinkin'? You're gunne cough up your liver. Hey, I'm sure the sex with your lass back home is fab an' all that jazz but …"

"No sex," Xander interrupted, frowning. No sex on several levels. On the literal one, because he hadn't done that since Anya, with her cherry tipped fingers plucking at his skin and her fluttering eyelashes brushing over his stomach.

And also 'no sex' on the 'with Dawn' level because, ew. Dawnie was like, twelve. Or at least she used to be and Xander had been present to see the twelveness, so there would be no sexing the Dawnster or admiring her womanly frame. Ever.

Huh. Booze was finally kicking in.

"She not puttin' out? Tough break," Jez said.

"No – no, she's like a little sister. Who didn't always exist," Xander explained, though not very well. Jez nodded slowly, shifting on the couch as she made herself comfortable. Henna in her hair and sharp white teeth under lips of pink that washed into the darkest black, she looked incongruously grand on his ugly green couch.

"So what's the problem, then?" She asked, kicking her boots off under his coffee table. They were pale lilac and splashed with blood as it was hard to tell the difference between vamp and run of the mill human attacker. Lucky for him, Jez hadn't pulled a Faith after the whole 'I accidentally killed a bunch of people' thing. Yet.

"There's an apocalypse in Italy," Xander said, letting _that_ uncomfortable 'Jez could go psycho' thought lie. Some things just weren't worth thinking about.

"There's an apocalypse down the road, too, last I checked. That's why Mr. Giles sent me here to this God forsaken hole," Jez said. Xander glanced around his apartment. Okay, it wasn't Caesar's Palace or anything but it wasn't a _hole_, per say. He'd hung a couple pictures up on the yellowed wallpaper, and the curtains were clean. Mostly.

"Nobody said you had to stay here. Giles would pay for a hotel," he muttered. He wasn't sulking, he was being reasonable. Really.

"No, I mean _Africa_," Jez explained impatiently, "I miss home. Dundee is great this time of year – all the sales are on and I heard they're opening a new Miss Selfridges. You know, the old bugger only sent me here because I'm black. Its total fuckin' discrimination," and then the words were jumbled bursts of noise that made no sense to Xander because Scottish was an even harder dialect to fathom than Arabic.

"Go call your union," Xander shrugged when she seemed to be finished. Jez snorted, letting her head rest on Xander's shoulder. Which, hello, was still bare. He _knew _he should have put a shirt one.

"Would you like me to take your mind off things?" Jez's breath was suddenly there hot against his neck as her tongue slid up the shell of his ear.

"Why is that only lesbians and demons want to make out with me?" Xander groaned.

"I'm not a lesbian, I'm bi. It's possible to like both. Get with the times, Xand," she laughed, lifting her gaze to his. Her smile was too wide and the flash beneath her eyes made him dizzy. Or maybe the dizziness was due to the hooch trickling into his blood and dancing rings around his brain. But whatever. Because this was _his_ United States of Whatever, his very own little patch of home in the middle of the sprawling crash of a city that was Tripoli.

Oh, wow. Lips. On Xander's neck. Jez's fingers (calloused and manicured) slid to his waistband and her long legs wrapped around his waist. She tasted like cheap bubblegum and jasmine and full lips were whispering words that would make a sailor blush as she urged him on.

She was just like Anya.

"_God,__ uh, fuck yes," Jez pants harshly, her eyes wide open and staring straight into his, no regard for sexual etiquette because she hasn't the time for it. Xander struggles to keep his expression from bending into his ugly-sex-face but when she pulls at his hair and presses a wet kiss to his mouth, he forgets._

And she was nothing like Anya at all.

"_This is nice__." Jez said onto his skin, breathing softly and her eyes shut. _

"_Yup__," Xander says into her hair, smiling. _

"_Let's keep doing this, okay? Going out and stuff." She says, yawning. _

"_Okay," he replies. She's asleep a minute later, snoring softly. _

_Sh__e's too hot against his skin, her head is too heavy on his shoulder and he's getting a cramp in his neck. But they're both human and they always have been. They have that, if nothing else._

_Fifth Year after Sunnydale_

He was still reeling from the disaster that his visit to Brazil had been by the time the plane touched down in New York.

It had supposed to have been a Scooby Reunion but Buffy was still overseeing her new house being built in Monaco with The Immortal (fondly referred to as Morty), Dawn was still busy in college (college!) and Giles was buzzing around the English countryside teaching Latin and dispensing Supreme Watcher knowledge … so, for the first time in three years, it would be just Xander and Willow sans Scooby Gang.

Unfortunately fate was apparently pissed off with Xander. Willow and Kaya (her short, Argentinean not-nearly-as-annoying-as-Kennedy girlfriend) had broken up about a week before he arrived. And nobody had remembered to tell him.

Of course it had been good ole Xander to cheerfully poke and prod at her, blundering through a house he hadn't known was empty, until she broke. He'd spent the rest of his visit walking on eggshells, alarmed when Willow would burst into tears when he least expected her to. That was new. Not being able to expect her tears. Not being able to decipher the meaning of a few syllables slipping through her hitched sobs. The worst part of it was that she knew some things had changed, too. She could see his uncertainty, felt it herself when she'd walked in on him clicking away at a laptop at 2am with undeniable competence, a mug of coffee on his knee and a pair of glasses slipping down his nose (porn and research, routines he hadn't realised he'd adopted until she pointed it out).

As he collected his backpack from the overhead locker (it was all he was carrying – he travelled light since all his collectables had gone down with Sunnydale), he considered that maybe the trip had only been disconcerting because was so short. Maybe they'd needed longer than five days to slip back into their familiar WillowXander groove. It wasn't like he didn't know her anymore - nothing that dramatic. It was more like … forgetting how to dance with someone. They were out of sync, both feeling a little sheepish because neither could quite remember the steps.

The smells of the airport were pleasantly clean and the planes were white and shining in the light cast from the giant windows at the departure gates … nothing like the shuddering crates that shuttled to and from the dusty spits of concrete back in Africa. A dragon of a lady (probably in the literal sense considering his luck) made no attempt at congeniality as she stamped his passport, coughing wetly into her palm from behind her sheet of Perspex as she peered at him suspiciously.

Ah, to be back home in the US of A.

Her gaze flicked back and forth from him and his passport's photograph. The picture was taken in Cleveland, just after they'd left the Sunnydale site. Five years of fighting (vampires, demons, irate fathers) and dysentery had taken its toll. His face had hollowed, his skin was like old leather and an unnaturally smooth stretch of pink ran from his right ear to his chin (thanks to a Molotov cocktail thrown at his car by one of the aforementioned irate fathers).

"How long have you been abroad?" she asked.

"Four years," he replied tersely. He could do terse.

When he finally got through passport control, it didn't take him long to spot the liaison that was to take him to his meeting with New York's demon community. 'MR. HERISS' scrawled in conspicuous red stood out amongst a crowd of signs for Mr. Singhs and Mr. Smiths and Xander walked towards the sign.

"Chris Tolbert," the boy holding the sign said, holding out a hand. He was younger than Xander had expected him to be, not older than 19 and dressed in a suit that swallowed him. It was an effort at professionalism but the hair falling into his eyes and the deep crack in his lip made him look more like a wretch who'd stolen his dad's best suit.

"Xander Harris," he said. "Could we stop at my hotel before the meeting? I'm kind of ripe," an apologetic smile and a vague gesture to his ratty jeans and worn green sweater. He looked like Kurt Cobain, only without the strawberry Kool Aid in his hair. Xander had henna instead (necessary for a protection spell Abu Saleh had insisted on). Chris' gaze followed Xander's hand and he jerked guiltily when he realised he was staring.

"No problem," he said quickly, "Dad … uh, The Negotiator, doesn't expect you at the meeting 'till eight. You have all night."

"Sounds good. Do you know where we could get some Chinese food? Sudanese restaurants aren't big on mushu chicken," Xander said, walking towards the exit. Chris laughed and scuffed his shiny new loafers in his haste to catch up.

"I can get Danny to find some take out for you," he said as they climbed into the back of the limo his dad had arranged.

"You don't like Chinese?" Xander asked, sliding across the leather seat.

"Uh …"

"Or does Danny not like you? I mean, a guy has to hold a lot of hate to deny someone mushu chicken," Xander continued. Chris looked bewildered. Trying to understand Xander's train of thought when he was tired was like trying to understand why people owned The Simple Life box-sets. In other words:

"Huh?" One second passed, then ten. Then Chris clicked. "I like Chinese. I just thought you'd want to be alone, to … prepare or whatever," he said. Xander glanced at him and Chris caught his breath when his fingers were pulled away from his mouth by warm calloused hands.

"If you don't want to look like Angelina Jolie and Mick Jagger's secret lovechild, you shouldn't mess with that cut," Xander warned. "So. Chinese at my place, after a shower?"

"Cool," Chris said, grinning.

At some point between getting out of the shower and getting dressed, they started kissing. "You don't waste much time," Chris breathed as Xander pulled at his tie (pale green silk, his father's, and there's a horrible thrill at watching it fall to the floor, crushed underfoot).

"Not much time to waste," Xander said, because it sounded like something he should say. "And I'm a manslut," he added, because that was nearer the truth.

It was the best homecoming Xander could have hoped for.

_Sixth Year after Sunnydale_

Xander hated driving. He hated the swerving, the weaving, the constant jittery edge that made him squirm because everyone was driving so damn fast and indicating when turning was just this weird foreign concept that nobody thought was particularly relevant. And that was just Africa; LA was worse.

Jeff Buckley was his salvation when it came to driving, closely followed by Rufus Wainwright. They saved Xander's teeth as grinding and jaw clenching wasn't doing his molars any favours. The only problem with listening to Rufus or Jeff was the fact that his thoughts tended to wander, often to whatever he least wanted to think about.

On his drive to LA, his thoughts turned back to Sunnydale - he'd visited the site of the crater earlier that day. The last time he'd stood there it had seemed vast, like the whole word had swallowed itself up, folding inwards. The last time Xander stood so close to where Sunnydale had been it had been his whole world.

He thought about other things as he drove, too. People he'd rather forget. He thought of Jez and how he'd hurt her so completely, promising to love her just to keep her quiet ("next summer we'll go to Italy, okay? There's too much going on right now, you just need to give me time"). He thought of Chris and how Xander'd used every inch of him, offering him nothing in return ("We never talk? Jesus, Chris, this isn't Good Xander Hunting"). He thought of Mary Kate Olsen and how he caught himself lusting after her in that new movie where she played a lovesick mermaid ("her sparkly sea shell bra turns me on. It's some kind of spell, I swear").

He flinched when his cell buzzed on the seat beside him and fiddled with the hands-free set that took both his hands and all of his concentration to set up.

"Xander Harris," he said into the phone, having given up on the buzzy blue-tooth thing that wouldn't fit in his ear. Willow had bought it for him and though he liked gadgets (because he was a man, and men liked gadgets) he'd convinced himself the hands-free set was an emissary of evil. Or at the very least, shady magicks and questionable juju.

"Hello Mr. Harris, this is Percy Weston of the Watcher's council management core, registration code 390 ..."

Xander heaved a sigh as he waited for Percy to run out of steam and actually get to the freakin' point, which could take a while. The Council had always been big with the bureaucracy and though Giles had cut through miles of red tape, he still liked to keep thing numbered and ordered. Dewey decimal flashbacks or something.

"You are to make an unlicensed pick up that will not require archiving. You are to be discrete as Mr. Giles …"

Xander did a mental cheer. No archiving meant no long reports that he'd spend half the night writing, only to have it returned because it wasn't diplomatic to call a slayer Miss Supreme Bitchatron. Or Miss Crazypants. Or Miss ...

"All other details are contained in the message we emailed you, so …"

"Thanks Percy," Xander said, snapping the cell shut. He pulled over at the next coffee shop that offered wireless access and resisted launching a game of Minesweeper (expert level, baby). "Less violence, please less violence…" he murmured as he waited for the email to open. The last two girls had been Latino and both of them had boyfriends just itching to bust a cap in the gringo who'd stolen their girls. The three before them had thought Xander a crazy stalker and had pepper-sprayed him, hitting him with handbags. Gucci's spring line collection really hurt when there was slayer strength behind the swing.

Name: Unconfirmed.

Pseudonym: Ice Queen

Location: Basement, Carmichael Warehouse

Sightings: Warehouse district and Ground Zero of the Wolfram and Hart terrorist attack.

Description:

Race: Caucasian

Hair: Blue

Eyes: Blue eyes

Age: N/A

Build: Petite

Works with an unnamed male accomplice (slight in build, brown hair, dressed in black, no distinguishing features). She has reportedly been slaughtering the local demon population indiscriminatingly for the past year, and there are sightings of her all over America for four years before now. Approach her with extreme caution. See attached file for detailed eyewitness reports, an artists impression of her and patterns of activity.

If assistance is required contact nearest Council Resource Base.

You help in this matter is appreciated!

Watcher's Council Management Core

So much for 'less violence'. Willow would probably trace it to karma (ever since the literal White Witch moment at the high school battle she'd been into the spiritual side of magic). Willow might say this case was penance for the Olson lust.

Or she might blame the bad karma on the sex. Well, not on the sex, but on Xander's new take on the whole shebang. He'd given for most of his life, handed over bits of himself to whoever paid enough attention to him to ask. Since Sunnydale things had changed. He'd realised that the only way to survive was to take what other people gave you and to keep yourself safe. He'd given up any semblance of a normal life to help a pretty girl who so rarely needed him. He'd earned the right to be selfish.


End file.
